Kotaku has a follow-up to Stardock's recent lawsuit against Alexandra Miseta over what the company alleges was its former marketing manager's role in the shortcomings of Elemental: War of Magic. They have court documents showing that before being sued herself, Miseta had already brought her own lawsuit against Stardock CEO Brad Wardell for sexual harassment, retaliation, and wrongful termination, and that Stardock's lawsuit came three weeks after a judge denied their request to dismiss her case. In addition to details from the sexual harassment case, they offer accounts from an anonymous alleged former Stardock employees refuting the idea that Miseta was responsible for Elemental's failure. They say Wardell has not yet responded to their request for comment on this.

Beelzebud wrote on Sep 6, 2012, 15:09:Have a look at this delicious forum thread where Wardell decides to set the record straight. This guy is a few beers short of a 6-pack. I'll bet his lawyers love him right about now.

He just keeps digging that hole deeper. The one commenter on there is right, his lawyers are going to kill him for publicly discussing his ongoing case on an open forum.

Good lord. That thread is unbelievable.

At this point, if his lawyers are anything sensible they should resign. Brad is literally destroying his own case in that thread to the point I'm not sure it's going to be recoverable.

As someone in that thread said, the only things that will really anger his lawyers are if their billable hours go down, or if he doesn't pay. They still get paid if they lose, and a batshit crazy client isn't really a mark against them.

space captain wrote on Sep 6, 2012, 22:46:hey stanly manly you sound like the kind of guy that i would like to pound into the dirt, put your mouth on a curb and kick your dumbshit head until your teeth get shoved into your brain

lets make that happen, give me your address so i can come over and kick your chickenshit ass, you fucking maggot

What this planet needs is us gone but it does not care what we do with it, this planet will exist longer than the human race, that is guaranteed. But what we need is an intelligent and powerful alien overlord that utterly dominates the planet and us. There is no way humans are going to be anything but a blight upon the galaxy otherwise. Unless we get some serious, global, corrective pressure applied to us as race there is no future for humans. Sure we might spread and strip-mine and pillage more worlds but it will never end, and if we get to a stage of development where we can strip-mine entire planets in 50 years there will be no stopping us, we will be the doom for all life in this part of the galaxy. Or it might end, if we never even get that far... not sure that'd be a "bad" situation ,p

Draugr wrote on Sep 6, 2012, 21:02:Uh, men are victims of sexual harassment too.And the implication of your statement is that any man would be open to the harassment of their female boss provided they make enough money. I know plenty of men who would take offense. (edit: Lets also not pretend your fantasy of your boss coming in and hitting on your is what we're talking about here, exclusively. Sexual harassment can take many forms, for example your boss could run around telling people you have a small dick. You probably wouldn't enjoy it, and you'd still be getting harassed.)

Let's put in some more gender reversal, to give some more perspective... Instead of A weathly female boss lets make it a male employee and a male boss, and ask the same question, "what guy would be crying over their multi-millionare male boss flirting with them..." Just as with female employees, it's only fair that we insist these male employees deal with this harmless flirting, and stop being overly sensitive.

Unwanted advances/flirting is harassment, plain and simple, it doesn't change depending on the Genders involved.

Apparently you were confused by the term "men". You are thinking of the term "pansies".

Let me clue you in. Men don't cry over someone flirting with them. Pansies, such as yourself, do. If the worst thing to ever happen to me at work was the gay boss hit on me, I'd consider myself lucky. I wonder if any of you feminists have jobs that don't involve promoting some kind of bullshit "awareness". Bet you've never done a days work in your life.

RollinThundr wrote on Sep 6, 2012, 17:31:It's more than likely by state. Personally I've never heard of a human rights law other than by UN PC types, or from the example stated in this thread.

It was linked three times here already, it's both a federal law and a state law in every state. This is easily verified with Google. If you want to stick your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist to make some dumb political rant then go ahead but you are 100% wrong.

While we don't know enough to know if this ever happened in this particular case, I think it's a point worth mentioning that harassment laws are very clear that the behavior in question must have been called to the attention of the alleged harasser as being unwanted and viewed inappropriate by the harassed for it to be legally actionable

He indicated he would not change his behavior and alluded to a future hostile work environment, it's pretty clear cut. Then he went out on the internet and admitted it to the world. I don't see any wiggle room here for Brad Wardell. He claims she made everything up and sabotaged his game at random but his own correspondence says otherwise. I don't really care what his political affiliations are, it is despicable behavior.

Beelzebud wrote on Sep 6, 2012, 15:09:Have a look at this delicious forum thread where Wardell decides to set the record straight. This guy is a few beers short of a 6-pack. I'll bet his lawyers love him right about now.

Beelzebud wrote on Sep 6, 2012, 15:09:Have a look at this delicious forum thread where Wardell decides to set the record straight. This guy is a few beers short of a 6-pack. I'll bet his lawyers love him right about now.

What isn't clear to me is if the behavior continued after the woman made it clear it was unwanted and considered inappropriate. That is what would constitute illegal harassment as far as I understand the law. As the lawyer explained, it only becomes illegal after it continues past the notification.

Brad asserting that he's going to continue harassment, and in fact he'll close the company rather than change his behavior, seems pretty damning.

Acleacius wrote on Sep 6, 2012, 20:30:He's gonna have to step down, no way the company can continue to be profitable with him working at the company.

The only way he could make this go away is to pay her off. It would have to be at least 7 figure deal, since she has him by the balls.

Uh, I believe he owns the company.

As an aside, I wonder what people would think about this presented from a different perspective. Reverse the genders, and now tell me what guy would be crying over their multi-millionare female boss flirting with them...

(I'm assuming he is a multi-millionare, I don't know his actual worth. Someone in the know can enlighten me here.)

Uh, men are victims of sexual harassment too.And the implication of your statement is that any man would be open to the harassment of their female boss provided they make enough money. I know plenty of men who would take offense. (edit: Lets also not pretend your fantasy of your boss coming in and hitting on your is what we're talking about here, exclusively. Sexual harassment can take many forms, for example your boss could run around telling people you have a small dick. You probably wouldn't enjoy it, and you'd still be getting harassed.)

Let's put in some more gender reversal, to give some more perspective... Instead of A weathly female boss lets make it a male employee and a male boss, and ask the same question, "what guy would be crying over their multi-millionare male boss flirting with them..." Just as with female employees, it's only fair that we insist these male employees deal with this harmless flirting, and stop being overly sensitive.

Unwanted advances/flirting is harassment, plain and simple, it doesn't change depending on the Genders involved.

What isn't clear to me is if the behavior continued after the woman made it clear it was unwanted and considered inappropriate. That is what would constitute illegal harassment as far as I understand the law. As the lawyer explained, it only becomes illegal after it continues past the notification.

See paragraph 76 of the Complaint and Summons linked in the article. It says she complained "throughout the course of her employment". Whether or not that is true will come out in the case, but fabricating claims is a pretty serious deal and any halfway decent lawyer wouldn't allow it, so I'd be surprised if it was false. Also paragraph 85 describes a harassing comment made after the email was sent. It also continues in paragraph 88.

Stanly Manly wrote on Sep 6, 2012, 20:37:Uh, I believe he owns the company.

As an aside, I wonder what people would think about this presented from a different perspective. Reverse the genders, and now tell me what guy would be crying over their multi-millionare female boss flirting with them...

(I'm assuming he is a multi-millionare, I don't know his actual worth. Someone in the know can enlighten me here.)

If it is unwanted, it is harassment, no matter what genders are involved.

Acleacius wrote on Sep 6, 2012, 20:30:He's gonna have to step down, no way the company can continue to be profitable with him working at the company.

The only way he could make this go away is to pay her off. It would have to be at least 7 figure deal, since she has him by the balls.

Uh, I believe he owns the company.

As an aside, I wonder what people would think about this presented from a different perspective. Reverse the genders, and now tell me what guy would be crying over their multi-millionare female boss flirting with them...

(I'm assuming he is a multi-millionare, I don't know his actual worth. Someone in the know can enlighten me here.)

What isn't clear to me is if the behavior continued after the woman made it clear it was unwanted and considered inappropriate. That is what would constitute illegal harassment as far as I understand the law. As the lawyer explained, it only becomes illegal after it continues past the notification.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” - Mahatma Gandhi